Congratulations you clicked on Archives.

I plan on improving on a few things. The first batch I had a few people give me feedback and I agree with it. One thing was that, it was a little tough, I’m not sure if this was due to drying time or marinating time, but it was the first time I’d done it so I have some thoughts on how to improve this time. Last time due to my anxiousness to get some done, I only let the meat marinade for about an hour or two. This time it will sit for a minimum of 24 hours, hopefully that will improve the flavor and the texture of the final product. Secondly, last time I did it, I had to cut my own meat, which was really fun and maybe someday I’ll have a career as a butcher, but the meat came out a bit thicker than I’d wanted it to, so this time I will really try to make sure that I hone my skills to provide a quality end result. In hopes of continuing to improve my craft of jerky making I will this time be taking careful notes on procedure and recipe in hopes that I will be able to perfect my craft. I will make sure to post about my findings so that if you feel like attempting to reproduce my results then you will have access to these recipes and results.

If you have any suggestions on flavors or anything else please feel free to use the NEW cogitations comment section.

Today has been one of unexpected blessings. Not only did the weather hold today making painting somewhat enjoyable, instead of sweltering. But I received an email from a long time friend from Whitworth who I haven’t talked to in the longest while. He met Jenny Smith at Princeton and found out she blogged and then found out that I blogged and then sent me an email. How cool. Then I surfed over to his site and saw a few other names that I knew and was overjoyed to leave comments on their blogs letting them know that I blog.

I can only hope that today continues to be a fine day. Unfortunately I’ve already gotten the mail and nothing good there, unless you count the card from Blockbuster telling me I owe them 4.10 in late fees for renting Along Came Polly on 8/16/04.

I do know that tomorrow will shape up to be a good day. Due to the fact that it is Tuesday. Which is new media day, CD’s, books, games, and movies all come out on Tuesdays. And tomorrow one particular thing comes out that I blogged about last Feb. That thing is:

This weekend has finally ended. Aside from the long advisor retreat sat, raquetball sat night, the really late night playing Halo (I got home at 4am Sun) and the mini golf sunday morning (getting up at 8), church, the tutoring sun afternoon and High school group sun night, I’m just about dead.

I had a good time doing all the stuff and got to spend time with some good people, including the High Schoolers I got to see for the first time in 2 weeks (tonight was our fall kickoff). My time tonight was spent at home doing laundry and watching a movie that I’d really had wanted to see since early this year.

It’s a small independent French film. It’s animated, with little to no spoken words, while scored quite nicely with vivid sounds and images accompanied with a few songs. While quite strange at times it was a refreshing piece of art. Art in the truest form, meaning not everyone will like it and those who do like most won’t like all, but it will intrigue you and fascinate you. The story is slowly developed through a montage of scenes that initially have nothing to do with each other, but the overarching premise is a boy, his mother, their dog and a triplet of singers and the journey of discovery, devotion, perseverance, change and love.

The film is only 78 min long but feels much longer, which is good and bad. If you are feeling in an artsy mood or looking for something different than the crap from Hollywood please make an effort to check out a copy of this movie.

Tonight Val and I headed over to Jen’s house where we met Kerri to play some Pinochle. I brought some Smirnoff Twisted V Mandarin Orange along to add to the fun.

If you’ve never played Pinochle you really should it’s a fairly fun game. It takes a little time to learn, but the best way is to watch some people who are patient enough to walk you through what they are doing. It’s one of those games that has deep roots in strategy in how you play your cards and how you try and coax your opponents to play their cards too.

On another note I’ve been sick for about the last week and it hasn’t been too much fun. I think it’s been a sinus infection which really just gives me headaches and a burning sensation in my nose and a lot of congestion. Really no fun at all.

Last night was a lot of fun going to see Richard Swift at the Hotel Cafe. If you want to hear some good music head over to Richard’s site and take a look and if your looking for a cool place to go to hear live music head out to the Hotel Cafe, they’ve got live music most nights of the week. You can even occasionally catch Alexi Murdoch (who I need to see myself) playing there. The only downside was that the show didn’t start til around 10:45 which meant that it got over around 11:30 plus travel time home and such it was around 12:15 by the time I finally walked into the house. Let’s just say between the sinus infection and the lateness I didn’t make it to painting houses today.

Tomorrow I have an all day retreat for Jive the High School group. We are headed out to a beach house in Oxnard to meet as a leader team to discuss the upcoming year and talk about how to better minister to these kids. Should be a lot of fun.

And tomorrow night I’m headed over to AJ’s house to head out to Spectrum (a gym that Bobby works at) to play some Racquetball. Then we will head back to the house to engage in some heavy fighting via Halo.

This weekend is pretty packed with things to do and I’m not too sure that I’ll be able to recover all that well. Hopefully I’ll get some rest and start to feel better.

If you notice there is now a new comment section called cogitations. This is going to replace the old comments section. I just noticed that the old ones cap out at 5 comments this new one allows more people to leave messages. I will leave the old ones up (down at the bottom of the posts)(all the blank ones will be replaced with just a “.”) just so that people can read what was left before but please use the new cogitations one. Thanks so much.

Today I went to Frost Middle school, where I had attended 6th grade, for See You at The Pole. I ended up seeing 3 of our Jr High students. (I still call them Jr Highers even though they go to middle school and I myself went to middle school, I never really caught on to the whole middle school thing, so Jr Highers they are) They were quite surprised to see me there, yet they seemed not too surprised either, like I would naturally fit into their surroundings (that sounded a bit Natural Geographic). But when I told them what I was there for, being prayer they seemed a bit disinterested. I did see a group of kids gathered around the flagpole and when I questioned if they might be praying, the only response I got was “Oh, those are the cool kids they are there all the time. Praying, Ha yeah right.” All in all the morning was quite disappointing in the hope that kids would be doing some praying, but I myself spent some time praying for them and their school, so I was standing alone.

Today is See You at the Pole. In where students and teachers and others gather at the flagpoles of schools to pray. Last night we had the 1st annual all valley (san fernando valley) SYATP rally. Our hope was for around 1500 students to come and gather and get excited about today’s event. While we didn’t get the 1500 we were expecting a few hundred came out and hopefully have been encouraged to pray today at their schools. While you probably can’t make it to a school at 7:30am today please take some time to pray for your local schools or your past schools. The theory is that this event is totally student led and they are standing up announcing their faith and taking a stand to make a difference on their campuses.

We are the church. No matter your age. You are the church and we need to make a difference if you do not do it then who will. I myself am very tired of the mainstream church, we need a change and we need to reach people who are not followers of Christ. But in my opinion even more so than the unchurched we need to reach those who claim the name of Christ yet sit on the sidelines doing little to nothing with their faith. As Newton’s theory states “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”, we as Christians must respond to Christ’s action (death on a cross) with equal action, and opposite that we are going to bring life to those who are dead to Christ. Let God motivate you to react to his love and then go out and motivate others, those who do not know God or those who you know who say yes with their mouths but do not with their actions. Our time is now, we are the generation who is in control of the Church, not just those people who sit on committees or boards. Be the Church God loves so much.

If you remember I posted a while about the upcoming movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, see here if you don’t remember. Thank you to G4TechTV again, and their show called Players they happened to do a segment with the cast of Sky Captain and they showed some making of footage. The movie is about 98% CGI, with only the live actors being the real things in the shots, but even sometimes the scenes are totally digital. Once again reiterating how amazing this movie looks. The graphics and lighting are going to make this one visually lavish flick. Just had to share that with you.